I would be surprised if the average busy practitioner has yet fully grasped the radical nature of the 'flexible training' proposals that recently emerged from the Law Society's training framework review group.

Speaking both as a practitioner for more than 30 years and a law teacher for more than 25 years, I cannot in the context of legal professional education recall a more half-baked and dangerous set of proposals. While it is only right that the entire qualification process including the legal practice course should be subjected to scrutiny from time to time, I have always assumed that the custodians of the process would place the maintenance of professional standards above all else. I regret that I can no longer hold that view.


The review group's chairwoman is reported to have been 'surprised' by the 'vociferous nature' of the reaction to date to the proposals; I would like to think that the reaction to date is but the prelude to a much more hostile response that will be forthcoming once the implications of the proposals dawn on the profession at large. I urge all solicitors to study the proposals (notwithstanding the breathtaking lack of detail) carefully; the principles are enough to condemn the proposals without waiting for the detail to emerge.


The irony of these proposals is that, if adopted, they no doubt would in some instances reduce the costs burden of qualification to the prospective entrant to the profession, but overall they would just as certainly increase the cost and complexity of training to the prospective employer. Many small firms are simply not equipped economically to handle a far more onerous formal training process - they feel regulated enough with the present training regime - and would cease to provide training contracts altogether, thereby reducing, not increasing, access to the profession. Less conscientious firms would pay lip service to a new system while in reality ignoring the substance of it.


In years to come, we would have many more graduate paralegals but fewer solicitors; and the calibre of some of those who did qualify would be questionable. Such a result will be anything but a victory for diversity and access and will simply reduce us to the status of a second-class profession - if we are still regarded by then as a profession at all.


Peter Williams, Bristol